Dam gates, dredging are major topics at county flood bond meeting in Kingwood

By Melanie Feuk

Updated
11:13 am CDT, Thursday, July 12, 2018

Matt Zeve, Harris County Flood Control District director of operations, discusses factors that impact flooding in Lake Houston during the San Jacinto River Watershed meeting on Tuesday, July 10 in Kingwood.

Matt Zeve, Harris County Flood Control District director of operations, discusses factors that impact flooding in Lake Houston during the San Jacinto River Watershed meeting on Tuesday, July 10 in Kingwood.

Photo: Melanie Feuk / Melanie Feuk

Photo: Melanie Feuk / Melanie Feuk

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Matt Zeve, Harris County Flood Control District director of operations, discusses factors that impact flooding in Lake Houston during the San Jacinto River Watershed meeting on Tuesday, July 10 in Kingwood.

Matt Zeve, Harris County Flood Control District director of operations, discusses factors that impact flooding in Lake Houston during the San Jacinto River Watershed meeting on Tuesday, July 10 in Kingwood.

Photo: Melanie Feuk / Melanie Feuk

Dam gates, dredging are major topics at county flood bond meeting in Kingwood

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Dredging, detention and gates were some of the major topics of discussion during the San Jacinto River Watershed meeting on Tuesday, July 10.

The meeting was hosted in Kingwood by the Harris County Flood Control District to discuss potential projects to include in the county’s flood control bond.

The $2.5 billion bond may mean a 2- to 3-cent tax increase per $100 of home value for Harris County property owners, according to the Harris County Budget Management Department. Nonetheless, many community members feel some of the proposed projects in the bond are vitally important for the area.

“The importance of all these community meetings that the county’s having is so the populous can be educated because we’re asking folks to self-impose a tax rate (increase), but I think everybody knows someone that was impacted by the flood, or was directly impacted by the flood, so this is absolutely important for the community from an economic development perspective,” said Mark Mitchell, president of the Lake Houston Economic Development Partnership. “(Houston) can’t be tagged as a flood-prone city — especially as the fourth largest city in the country.”

The bond referendum election is scheduled for Aug. 25, which happens to be the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey.

Kingwood and surrounding Lake Houston area communities were heavily impacted by flooding brought on by Hurricane Harvey.

At 6 p.m., when the open house meeting was scheduled to begin, already the Kingwood Park High School auditorium was packed with several hundred residents of the San Jacinto River Watershed eager to learn and provide input on bond projects that could help reduce flooding for Kingwood and other watershed communities.

“Lake Houston needs to be dredged, the (San Jacinto) River needs to be dredged, and we need extra gates in the dam,” said Jerry Stepp, an area resident.

Adding additional gates to the Lake Houston dam was seen as a priority project for several residents in attendance.

“The gates are probably the most important thing on the entire list,” said Trina Barker, a resident whose home flooded during the hurricane.

“I want to see the dredging, I want to see the detention, but most of all I want to see the gates because I think that is so important to prevent what happened, so that’s what I’m hoping will be included,” said Bernice Satterwhite, whose home also flooded.

The focus on dredging and gates is in standing with the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce’s new campaign called Plea for DDG, which promotes the inclusion of bond projects that would provide dredging, detention and additional gates at Lake Houston.

“The plea is focused on the Harris County Flood Bond election,” said Jenna Armstrong, president and CEO of the Lake Houston Area Chamber. “The important thing is to make sure we get dredging, detention and gates included in the final bond package that’s presented on July 31 to the county commissioners and that the county commissioners approve it.”

The city of Humble also falls within the San Jacinto River Watershed and Humble officials are also in favor of DDG-related projects.

“Needs for the San Jacinto Watershed (include) dredging the east and west forks of the river and Lake Houston sufficient to restore capacities to 1980 levels; additional detention and sediment basins west and north of Highway 59; (and) addition of gates on the Lake Houston dam that will provide more control of lake levels with a pre-release strategy and faster discharges when necessary,” said Norman Funderburk, Humble city council member.

The additional gates at the Lake Houston dam is the major project related to the lake that is currently proposed for the bond, according to Matt Zeve, Harris County Flood Control District director of operations. The project would be in partnership with the city of Houston and the Coastal Water Authority and Zeve said the purpose of adding more gates would be to facility pre-releases on Lake Houston so the lake level can be lowered and water holding capacity can be increased on the lake before a major storm event.

The HCFCD’s Proposed Project List shows the project’s total cost at $40 million, however it specifies that the final costs have not yet been determined as of June 29.

Jason Stuebe, Humble city manager, noted that while the meeting highlighted proposed projects in the San Jacinto Watershed, another focus is on projects in the Cypress Creek and Spring Creek Watersheds, which drain directly into Lake Houston.

“As far as the sediment basins and the detention areas that have been kind of proposed and talked about, those will show up mainly upstream from us — Spring Creek, Cypress Creek, northwest Harris County,” Stuebe said.

Armstrong explained that the detention projects proposed in the watersheds of Little Cypress, Cypress and Spring help keep water from flowing into the Lake Houston area, and the sediment basins help trap sand to keep it from flowing downstream and clogging the West Fork of the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston.

“A large majority of the sand is coming from Spring and Cypress Creek, a very large portion, so this will help mitigate the sand coming down,” Armstrong said. “I can’t say it’s going to stop because we think it’s coming from other places too, but there’s got to be other projects that are done. If we can’t stop the sand, we’re going to be having this problem over and over and over again.”

Included among the bond project proposals is a San Jacinto River Watershed study to identify the need and location of projects for the San Jacinto River Watershed. The proposed project list shows the grant total cost of the study at an estimated $2.5 million.

“We also have in the bond around $75 million, could be more, it’s just a placeholder right now, for whatever project or projects — and it most likely will be projects — that come out of that study so that we don’t have to wait and beg for money from different people; we can get started immediately with environmental permit reviews, right of way acquisition, engineering studies — there’s a lot of work that can be done as soon as that study’s done,” Zeve said.

Harris County officials are in discussions with the city of Houston regarding possible approaches to dredging Lake Houston and more of the San Jacinto River, however Zeve said these dredging projects pose difficulties.

“Once you get a barge out there, there’s very limited access to put the material that comes out of the lake,” Zeve said. “Where are you going to put all that material? …There’s a lot of development along Lake Houston.”

Costs would also be an issue. He pointed out that the upcoming dredging project of the West Fork conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers costs $63 million.

“For that one little reach of the West Fork. …$63 million for that reach of the river, just to put it back the way it was before Harvey,” Zeve said.

Mitchell said that the details for many of the potential projects related to dredging, detention and gates will be dependent upon study results.

“They are starting to add some granularity, but they need to keep some wiggle room for the studies to come back,” Mitchell said. “We may say we want dredging at this particular fork and they may say, ‘Well, we need that dredging to take place a half-a-mile up the river. So, we’re trying to leave that level of flexibility so we can do this right and do it once and not have to come back a second or third time.”